Petteri Pyyny
9 Dec 2021 13:56
There has never been an universal, true way to measure websites' traffic, but one site has managed to make it almost a reality for quarter of a century.
Alexa.com has been around since 1996 and has provided relatively accurate information on how popular each website/domain in the world is. Surely, it has always been relatively flawed metric, as the measurement data is based on various browser extensions and toolbars - thus, typically harming the rankings of sites with more security-conscious users.
Nevertheless, Alexa has provided a decent take on which websites are gaining popularity and which are declining. Alexa has been traditionally one of the key metrics that was included on Wikipedia pages about websites and web services.
Alexa.com was bought by Amazon back in 1999, but Amazon decided to keep the service running as it was for years and years, even tho it didn't exactly fit to its other businesses very well.
But now, Amazon has decided to call it quits. Alexa.com service will be discontinued as of 1st of May, 2022.
Alexa has provided professional SEO services, too and those are coming to an end as well. New subscriptions can't be bought and the old ones will cease when the Alexa itself will be shut down.
Official announcement about the closure of the Alexa.com was posted by the Alexa team.